7 Jun
2013
7 Jun
'13
10:33 p.m.
On 06/08/2013 12:19 AM, Mouse wrote:
Indeed, that has been my primary objection to the lumbering pigs that are
object-oriented codebases. Pretty much everything found under MacOS X
nowadays, for example.
FP does have the same problem. Lispers and Schemers, in particular, say
it's "no longer a problem" because "computers are so much faster
now" and
"have so much memory". This is directly indicative of the problem.
Of course I myself am a schemer, when I wear that hat, and I do fully half
of my work these days in R. So I see it from both sides. The power of those
languages just has to be experienced to be believed...and if I have to put
together a beefier computer to get at that power, I'll do it! It's contrary
to my every instinct, but still it is so.
What do you
see as the biggest obstacles for adopting the FP
abstractions in "everyday programming thought"?
I'm not the person you were responding to when you wrote that. But, as
you have no doubt guessed, I have some thoughts on the matter.
The biggest obstacle I see is that FP is not how computers actually
work. Computer hardware is fundamentally sequential imperative. If
you don't have your head around that pardigm, you cannot understand
what goes on under the hood, which, while perhaps not relevant for
routine hackery, does seem to be helpful - necessary, even - when it
comes time to deal with something going wrong.
Absolutely. The stuff under the hood is NUTS.
And yet still I keep reaching for R whenever I need to manipulate big piles
of numbers...but I'm certain more seasoned R/S programmers would say that I
write very nice C code in R. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA